Taking on the Generative Stage of Life, Waiting to die

The next step in this progression from birth through death, I am at the closing-down-my-home-of-42-years-stage!

A friend asked my daughter who was moving; her reply:

"My mom has 40+ years of items that she kept, all well organized though, plus mountains of paperwork from her business and teaching and giving speeches, and genealogy records from both sides of her parents dating back centuries, and old photographs dating back decades ago, plus other important records. She hasn’t been able to go through things herself since her heart failed ten years ago, but we could tell that she tried before then. As we’re going through the paperwork, we’re finding some things out of place, so she was probably struggling before her heart failed. What that means for us is that we need to go through every paper in every file before we get rid of anything. It’s a long process, and everyone has been great as we continue to work through it."

~ Laura

My daughter, her husband, my granddaughters, their partners, my great-grandchildren all work hard at sorting, boxing, making trips to Goodwill and the dump, bringing things from my home to a storage unit where the family can rummage for useful items. The families incorporated as much as they could into their homes and there are grandchildren and great-grandchildren very quickly growing into maturity. They can use beds, dressers, bookcases, kitchenware, and there even remains the electric hospital bed my father used the last seven years of his life, and I used after his death until moving into Laura's home.